A 'mad' Bell can't deliver KO blow

The Cardinals' Yadier Molina celebrates as he heads for home on Colby Rasmus' walk-off home run as Padres relief pitcher Heath Bell heads for the dugout in the ninth inning Sunday in St. Louis.
— Associated Press

The Cardinals' Yadier Molina celebrates as he heads for home on Colby Rasmus' walk-off home run as Padres relief pitcher Heath Bell heads for the dugout in the ninth inning Sunday in St. Louis.
/ Associated Press

ST. LOUIS 
One blown save in 2½ months was one too many for Heath Bell, especially considering the multitude of circumstances.

“I completely let this team down today,” Bell said yesterday evening after blowing just his second save opportunity of the season.

“I'm really ticked off. I'm pretty mad. You don't understand how it feels to be in my shoes right now. These guys worked so hard for so long and I couldn't do my job.”

In a span of four hitters after nearly five hours of baseball and rain delays, Bell turned a 5-4 lead into a 7-5 loss.

He already had blown the save on a run-scoring single by Yadier Molina when Colby Rasmus came to the plate with Molina on first and one out in the ninth inning.

Rasmus drove Bell's second pitch 418 feet into the right-field stands for his first homer since July 7 – a walk-off shot that gave the Cardinals a sweep of this three-game series while extending their winning streak over the Padres at the new Busch Stadium to nine straight games.

It's going to happen. Every closer blows saves.

Even after yesterday's failure, Bell's success rate this season is running about 5 percent ahead of Trevor Hoffman's record-setting career success rate.

But the circumstances were weighing heavily on Bell, who had successfully converted 15 straight saves since he suffered his only previous blown save on May 30.

And it didn't help that someone in the media pointed out that the last time Bell worked at Busch Stadium, he was the pitcher of record on the wrong side in the All-Star Game.

“The last time I was here, it was fun and exciting,” Bell said. “It didn't mean anything. This was business. I don't like letting people in this room down.”

When asked about the Rasmus drive, Bell said: “They got it out, that's all that matters. I'm trying to throw a pitch he couldn't hit and I threw one he could hit.

“This is just going to make me work that much harder.”

It was a tough loss for all the Padres.

After opening the six-game road trip with the bats powering back-to-back wins in Milwaukee, the Padres finished by losing four straight.

The bats still averaged 12 hits a game.

But the starting pitching suddenly went south – giving up 22 runs on 25 hits in just 15 innings – that's a 13.20 ERA – forcing the bullpen to work more than four innings a game.

With Clayton Richard issuing a career-high six walks in 3 2/3 innings yesterday while burning through 93 pitches, Padres manager Bud Black was forced to use six relievers.

Before yesterday's first pitch, Black expressed hope that Richard would go deep into his fourth start as a Padre to give his bullpen a break.

“The last four or five games has taxed our bullpen a little bit,” Black said. “The bullpen has logged a lot of innings.”

“That definitely wasn't my best effort,” Richard said. “The defense played well and bailed me out of some jams. I had the opportunity to shut them down and I didn't.

“I was pitching out of a hole all day.”

And it was a short day.

“Richard is still a rookie pitcher,” Black said. “He didn't have his best fastball, in form and life, and couldn't control it as well.”

The game was delayed twice by heavy rains – for 52 minutes during the sixth and again in the seventh for an hour and 27 minutes.